When the Senators played their first preseason game a couple weeks ago, fans were excited. But the excitement of preseason hockey wears off pretty quickly and I think at this point, we’re all ready to get the regular season started.
Tonight, the Senators play the final game of the preseason schedule at home against the Montreal Canadiens.
Next week, hockey starts for real.
But not before one final tune up game for Dave Cameron and his staff. Some pretty significant line up juggling ahead of this one too. Hoffman gets a look on a top line with Turris and Stone while MacArthur finds his way onto that energy line with Pageau and Lazar.
They’ll also have a bit of a different look on the blueline with both Marc Methot and Jared Cowen are both taking the night off. Cameron mentioned that while these will be the defence pairings to start the game, there’s a good chance they’ll be shuffled a little bit over the course of the evening. Will certainly be interesting to see how that Wiercioch-Karlsson due looks though as well as recent acquisition Mark Fraser.
Expecting two more players to be sent down following tonight’s game and in all likelihood, it will be Matt Puempel and Mark Fraser.
Here’s how the Senators are expected to line up.
Hoffman-Turris-Stone
Michalek-Zibanejad-Ryan
MacArthur-Pageau-Lazar
Chiasson-Smith-Neil
Wiercioch-Karlsson
Wideman-Ceci
Fraser-Borowiecki
Matt O’Connor gets the start in goal for Ottawa and is expected to play the full sixty minutes.
-Should come as no surprise to hear that Colin Greening cleared waivers this morning. Obviously not the camp and preseason Greening was hoping for but now he has to go down to Binghamton and prove that this isn’t the end of the line for him. Murray has said it on a few occasions but he would be happy to send Greening somewhere else to try and revive his career but right now there just isn’t any interest. Greening has to go down and dominate at the AHL level if he wants a shot at continuing his NHL career.
